---
title: In a week’s time he came back to the clerk to hear about the calf an… — The Pink Fairy Book · tree and pragmatics
description: In a week’s time he came back to the clerk to hear about the calf and see how it was thriving. Who acts: man, calf. A sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg5615/14/9/)

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# The Pink Fairy Book, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14, sentence 9

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In a week’s time he came back to the clerk to hear about the calf and see how it was thriving.

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**Who acts:** man, calf · **What happens:** come back, hear, see, thrive · **To what, where:** clerk · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, The Pink Fairy Book, part 14. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (man, calf), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg5615:14:9
# text = In a week’s time he came back to the clerk to hear about the calf and see how it was thriving.
1	In	in	ADP	IN	_	5	case	_	_
2	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	week	week	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nmod:poss	_	SpaceAfter=No
4	’s	's	PART	POS	_	3	case	_	_
5	time	time	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
6	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
7	came	come	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
8	back	back	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
9	to	to	ADP	IN	_	11	case	_	_
10	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	11	det	_	_
11	clerk	clerk	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	7	obl	_	_
12	to	to	PART	TO	_	13	mark	_	_
13	hear	hear	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	advcl	_	_
14	about	about	ADP	IN	_	16	case	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	calf	calf	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	13	obl	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	see	see	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	13	conj	_	_
19	how	how	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	22	advmod	_	_
20	it	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	22	nsubj	_	_
21	was	be	AUX	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	22	aux	_	_
22	thriving	thrive	VERB	VBG	Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Part	18	ccomp	_	SpaceAfter=No
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **come back** | past | man |  |  | the clerk | time |  | vn escape-51.1-1 «NP V PP.initial\_location»: agent=Theme to clerk=Initial\_Location |
| 2 | **hear** | to-infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  | about the calf | vn see-30.1-1-1 «NP V PP.stimulus»: agent=Experiencer about calf=Stimulus |
| 3 | **see** | infinitive | man *not said here* |  |  |  |  |  | vn comprehend-87.2-1-1 «NP V how S\_INF»: agent=Experiencer clause=Stimulus |
| 4 | **thrive** | past · progressive | calf |  |  |  |  |  | vn exist-47.1 «NP V»: agent=Theme |

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One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Pink Fairy Book» by Andrew Lang, Project Gutenberg book 5615 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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